As web site applications grow in number and complexity, measuring how they perform from a site visitor’s perspective is critical, according to a new study, “Monitoring the end-user experience: Improving business performance through application management,” from Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Inc. company. Focusing on the quality of the user experience instead of simply using enterprise-level performance measures delivers strategic benefits, the report found, with the top-ranking 20% of companies surveyed more than twice as likely to boost brand reputation when applications were monitored from the end-user’s viewpoint.

In fact, monitoring site applications from the customer’s perspective was a distinguishing feature of sites ranked in the study as “best in class”-those that ranked in the top 20% for meeting performance criteria set by Aberdeen. For example, 28% of best-in-class companies had the capacity to measure page loading times, while 75% of all other companies did not. Additionally, 73% of best-in-class companies had real-time alerts for application performance issues. In contrast, 66% of the lowest-ranking companies, defined in the report as “laggards.” did not.

55% of best-in-class companies were able to measure the performance of transaction applications, which was 2.5 times more than all other companies surveyed. And 68% of best-in-class companies had the capacity to measure the number of users affected by performance issues, beyond being able to identify whether issues stemmed from problems with particular hardware, applications, or geographic areas.

“This understanding can bridge the gap between IT-based metrics and business metrics,” the report says, noting that, in contrast, only 20% of companies surveyed outside of the best-in-class group understood how many users were affected by a performance issue.

The survey was based on responses from 126 companies spanning several industries including retail.